


Where You Lost Yourself.

by fearless_seas



Series: We Were Made of Sunshine and Gold [8]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Attempted Sex, Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Heartbreak, M/M, Memories, Non-Consensual Kissing, Running Away, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 05:16:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17155937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Toutes les bonnes choses meurent jeunes; all good things die young.





	Where You Lost Yourself.

**Author's Note:**

> So I had intended to write this in Dorian's perspective but then figured I'd just write another fic of the same thing of their road trip but in Dorian's perspective :') So, that'll come out another time, I suppose. This picks up basically right where the last installment left off. Enjoy!

          Toutes les bonnes choses meurent jeunes; all good things die young.

          It’s a proverb from god knows where and Esteban has never listened to words well. When he was younger, this was an issue because not his mother nor his father could control him. He’d run around the living room, hollering and shouting until Maman’s voice rings from kitchen:

          “Ne cours pas! Tu vas tomber!”, _don’t run, you’ll fall_.

          He never listened.

          So, he fell.

          And when he was sitting there like un imbecile, he’d wonder: _why didn’t I listen?_

          But it would happen again.

          “Ne grimpe pas aux arbres! Tu vas tomber!”, _don’t climb the trees, you’ll fall_.

          He ignored this, and continued climbing.

          So, he fell.

          Despite what he did, chasing fanatical villains across his couch or seeing how far he could climb before he could touch the sky… Papa would always take him .  There’d be a kiss to his forehead, a pretend that he could press his lips to the injury and whatever pain could subside from existence . He scolds him a strong but soft tone:

          “Tu t'es fait ça,” _you did this to yourself_.

          And Papa was right; he did it to himself--he always does it to himself.

          But he’s not sure where it is he seemed to have lost himself. Between dismal classroom hours troubled in notes or definitions he never recalled afterwards? Or years later  barely buried in stranger’s beds whose names he never caught?  Love and  being forgotten or greeting and goodbye;  maybe in books he should've read, the cinema, coffee shops, race tracks… Or, that February sealed beneath a pepper of fateless, ivory stars, his lips brushing the corner of a flinching lip .  Perhaps , the ticking of clocks or cursed time rolling towards an inevitable explosion of ember ?

          He’s not sure.

 _You’re never sure_.

          Where did you lose yourself, Esteban?

 _I don’t know_.

        He’d love to convince himself these were the locations where he’d truly found himself…  _oh, you’d love to, wouldn’t you?_ No--he knows where he lost it--he lost himself on that road trip. The one he begged Dorian into on the morning after Pierre’s nineteenth birthday.

          Wasn’t that where his hands were elsewhere?

_Yes_

          His eyes shining with that glitter of admiration… not for you?

 _Shut up_.

          Esteban had woken up puffy eyed, lifting his shattered core out of bed. There was the moment, a stark pinch of clarity  just as his mind rose where he forgot the events of the night before.  Alcohol, cigarettes, fists on his dashboard and the mangled sensation of collapsing at two in the morning .  There was the phone call, Pierre’s voice singing on the line with concern and… an elation for the future and things to come .  It’s sitting on the edge of the bed with the walls blurring between his sheltered fingertips and the aftertaste of unsaid words lingering on his tongue:

_I love you_.

          But you never said it, didn’t you?

 _No_.

Just as you never passed your classes with good grades; how you skip between friends and new beds every day; how you left him on the balcony without telling him a thing .

_Please, stop_.

          Esteban had ended the call, streaming his fingers through his hair before heading downstairs . He was still wearing the leather jacket he had the night before without alteration. For a minute he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. A disheveled stranger stood before the glass.  It was as thought all the pieces were there: dark eyes, crooked teeth and rough cheek bones but they didn’t quite fit together . Dorian’s parents weren’t home and when he trotted down the stairs, he peeked his head out of the kitchen.

          “Bonjour--”

          “Nous devons partir,” _we need to leave._

          He’s fast. He’s always been fast. This is why he runs, why he drives from his issues like destinations. Dorian tried to stop him, but Esteban had a license and he did not. Esteban knew where he was going and he did not, but Esteban--

          Don’t you feel bad? For having your best friend babysit you on your little adventure?

 _I trust him. I’ve known him since he was a kid_.

          That’s not what you were thinking at the hotel when you craved to drag him into bed with you hours later...

 _I trust him_.

          Don’t lie, you trust nobody. You lose yourself in fear, in anger and self loathing.

 _I don’t care_.

          That’s what you pretend. You’re not a racer--you’re an actor.

_Aren’t we all?_

          Dorian gives up after an hour from trying to wrangle the wheel from him. He questions: where are we going? But Esteban didn’t know either. Road signs became a blur and the plate tattoos itself into his palms. He doesn’t know where the streets lead but they carry him forward. Eventually, the gas runs its course and the sky is long unsaturated as Dorian spots out a hotel.

          He tries to get him to eat.

          Esteban shrugs him off, plants on the edge of the bed as he had in that very morning. He crawled under the covers and Dorian took the couch. They slept until morning when the car moved them twelve hours back home.

          But that’s the story you’d like to tell.

 _It’s the better version_.

          And it’s not what happened that night.

_How about we keep it like this?_

          You never sat on the edge of the bed.

_I didn’t._

          You waited until Dorian was off the phone with his mother.

_I waited._

          There was a wall behind him, when Dorian turned around to glance at you.

_Don’t let me finish it._

          You put a hand to his chest, don’t you remember? Shoved him until his back met the wall. But you saw it before you did anything, don’t pretend you didn’t: the fear.

_For the first time in his life, he was frightened of me._

          You held him there for a moment, suspended in time and before his mouth opened to speak a syllable you--

_I kissed him._

          Dorian had squirmed beneath him but he continued kissing him. Allowed his fingertips to trace the lining of his stiff jeans, desired to give him what was left within him. He attempts to edge his face away but Esteban restrains it with a hand. He had to take a breath:

          “What are you doing?”, Dorian's voice is trembling, his eyes are wide with a recognizable panic.

          And you did nothing. Even as you recognized him as the kid from karting... your friend. 

          Esteban thinks: _I need this_. _I need something to forget Pierre_.

          So he images him. Dorian is taller, his hair softer and each sound that escapes him echoes as a soft heaven of laughter.  He feels, beneath his fingers tips, the muscle of his abdomen and the summertime sensation of his breath . His eyes are deep as galaxies.  He snatches these feelings, presses them between the pages of an album like a flower as he dresses himself in the linen of his voice .  Because, we as humans, revisit old feelings and memories for the same reason we re-read favorite books: we derive comfort in familiar things even though we know the endings . Everyone only wants to remember what is was like to once feel human. He continues. Esteban shifts his fingers to tug at the hem of his shirt and his mind is open, more patent than the universe. His shut eyes imagine every wrinkle and freckle over Pierre’s nose appeared under his gaze.

          A muffled voice catches between you: “Esteban--”

          You’ve never been good at listening.

          “Esteban!”

          A rough, near violent shove to his chest and he tumbled backwards onto the bed. The shock of it causes his eyes to open. His vision blurs into focus and a figure looms in front of him, back to the wall--but it’s not Pierre.

          “What the fuck is wrong with you?”, Dorian gasps, a deep swallow shifting up his throat. He is rubbing the reddened marks on the hollow of his throat.

 _Everything_.

          You didn’t even apologize.

          Esteban leaves him behind, slamming the door and crawling into the front seat of his car once again. As he expected, Dorian follows a few minutes later,  quietly opening and shutting the car door as as he enters. It’s silent--the deadly type that causes battles and wars. He means without words:  _ I'm in this until the end _ . So they drive. This time, Dorian doesn’t ask where they are going. When the car stops, the clouds are out and the sky is a blanket of gray shadow. There’s a back road to a mountain side and the car stalls at the top as Esteban shuts the ignition off into naked silence. The hum of the engine dies and he  wordlessly pushes the door open to the edge of the cliff.

          And you’d like to pretend that you took a seat and tried to spot of the moon lurking behind the silver, night clouds.

          _But I didn’t_.

         As before: the anger comes forth from deep within him.  A growl, pushing and pressing through the boundaries of his inner throat, quaking and shattering his illusion of peace . He realizes:

_I’ve been hurt over the loss a memory; not a person. How things used to be, before the years grew between myself and him_.

          And you miss him.

          _I fucking miss him_.

          He grabs a handful of pebbles over the sounds of his screaming, tossing them over and over into the empty cavern.  Over and over again until his nails  are clawed and bleeding from dirt and dust; until his throat aches and burns; until he collapses in the dirt with a hand over his mouth and sob crawling past his teeth; until…

          You cried.

_As I had done in my car a day ago._

          Each tear feeling burnt like a word he’d never said.

          He cried until each breath was only a hiccup of warm air in the cold winter atmosphere.

          He cried until…

          Until…

          Until you felt nothing.

 _And there was nothing left within me_.

        He lays there in the dirt with the empty heavens at his knees. His chest and a dull heartbreak pumping blood through his ear drums. You wonder how each glittering star lives while being alone in a blanket of darkness. Out of all this, a hand slides over his shoulder blade--a gentle, caring touch that folds over his skin in comfort.

          “Did you get it all out?”, Dorian questions quietly.

          And in the process, he’d let everything out. Esteban is more exhausted than he’s ever been, as though the world had drained him of everything he’d ever had.

          “I don’t think I ever will,” his voice sounded foreign and unrecognizable.

          And when you couldn’t recognize yourself.

 _That was where I lost myself_.

          Under a cavern of stars peeking  shyly from tyrannical clouds; fallen in the dirt and snow; scrapes and cuts slicing deep into his fragile palms; and a heart, one that beats  incessantly forward despite the loss of breath beneath his feeble, bruised ribs…  

          “Je comprends,” Dorian settles in beside him. The moon shines for a moment across the scene. A brief occasion of clarity as the snow glitters like a diamond under the glaze of light. It reminds him of someone he knows, or, someone he used to know at least.

          “I hate him,” Esteban whispers, his breath clings to the air.

          Dorian sighs, “You don’t.”

_I don’t._

          Again: you’d like to pretend and act as though you do because it is far easier than explaining how you feel.

          “I want to.”

          But you don’t.

          Dorian’s hand never subsides from the small of his back. “Why don’t you talk to him?”, he asks.

          Yeah, why don’t you, Esteban?

 _Because I am frightened of what would come after_.

          He keeps his eyes away and everything seems smaller and less significant.

          “I can’t.”

          You lie.

        _I won’t_.

          Another sigh. “Come on,” Dorian stands up, brushing at the dirt on his jeans, “Let’s take you home.” He holds out a hand and Esteban hesitates before taking it.

          Dorian drives.

          “But you don’t have you license,” Esteban protests, curling his legs up in the passenger seat.

          “I’m the better driver anyways--go to sleep.”

          He’s too tired to fight him on this. A lean forward and his forehead is resting on the glass, his carved breath fogging at the window. An apology drips half asleep off of his heavy lips. Because everything reminds him of Pierre, he goes to sleep.

          Esteban met Pierre when he was five years old.

          And it took him ten years before he realized he was in love.

          It began with a glance behind his father’s legs in stranger’s driveway that already felt like home. Eyes that understood one another before they’d ever even spoken.

          And it ended with one, just the same, but Pierre wasn’t looking at him.

          You want to clutch him like a flame until there is not a thing left but bones.

 _Because, this time, I wouldn't let him go_.

          After all these years, Papa was still right: “Tu t'es fait ça,”  _ you did this to yourself _ .

          He was once a child who believed the sky was watercolors out of reach from his curious, itching grasp. And despite what he did:

          He fell.

          Because he never listened.

          And he still asks himself to this day: _why didn’t I listen?_

          There’s a proverb. From god knows where. Esteban has never listened to words well--but he remembers it above all else.

          Toutes les bonnes choses meurent jeunes; all good things die young.

**Author's Note:**

> This is so messy and bad, sorry. But ig....?? If you enjoyed, it barely takes a second to leave kudos :) Comments are really appreciated, I read and respond to every single one. My Tumblr is @pieregasly. Hope you enjoyed, happy holidays.


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